Will be there about another three weeks
By Sam Whiting, Reporter Updated Jan 12, 2025 10:53 p.m. - San Francisco Chroncile
The 14 members of the Hawkins family — representing three generations — did not get around to seeing their patriarch depicted in “Fort Point: A Bastion of Memory,” until the video installation had been up for six months in the old Civil War fort under the Golden Gate Bridge.
And when they finally arrived to sit in a dark and cold brick bastion on a Sunday afternoon that was sunny and warm everywhere else, they took up every available folding metal chair in the makeshift theater, and the younger generations sat on barrels for the 40-minute film loop.
“It’s hard to corral all of these people at one time,’’ said Bob Hawkins, 80, whose father, Charles, had been the second park steward when the fort became a park in 1970, and had the foresight to interview on tape one of its lighthouse operators from the turn of the 20th century. That tape was one of the artifacts dug up by Ben Wood, the historian behind “A Bastion of Memory,” and comprised oral histories from those who worked there.
The free installation, which runs weekends on a continuous loop, opened July 4, and without any signage in front has still managed to get enough people to climb to the second floor that it has been extended past its closing date at the end of 2024 until the first weekend in February.
“It has brought in more locals,” said Park Ranger James Osborne, “and that is a wonderful thing.”
So wonderful, in fact, that the filmmaker held an audience-appreciation/closing event Sunday to thank those who came, which consisted of the Hawkins family and a few others who were walking the halls and stopped to see what had compelled a crowd to sit in the cold.
Video installation at S.F. Civil War fort proves so popular it’s been extended
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